Tuesday, January 27, 2009

We began our journey from San Jose, bidding a fond farewell to our friends.

Our friend and God-brother, Gauranga Kishore is an inspirational force in presenting Krsna Consciousness to the thoughtful and educated people at Stanford University and the San Francisco Bay area.

When venturing out into the unknown, the only tools of the trade are faith in Lord Jagannatha, and a willingness to join His Divine Adventures!

The landscapes are breathtakingly gorgeous. There's nothing that can be said but "Jaya! All glories to the Lord!"

Fuel stations are few and far between, so when our gauge light came on empty, we decided to use our well-thought-out emergency reserve fuel supply.

The only problem was that we didn't get a funnel, and our spigot was too short to open the gas safety-flap. So being the adventurous type, Rasikananda found an old plastic paintbrush handle on the side of the road to prop it open, but on removing it, a small part broke off inside the tank! Oh no!! Lucky enough we called a local Land Rover dealer who said it shouldn't be a problem. There's a good filter in there that keeps debris from clogging the line, and probably the fuel will just dissolve that old plastic.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

We staked out the once-a-month-all-returns-on-super-cheap-sale-especially-after-christmas event in Berkeley, CA. We stood in long lines awaiting our chance to get a ticket, which allowed us a 20 minute shopping spree at 10:20-10:40am. Great stuff, super cheap, drives people wild. The crew: Nitai, Arjuna (AJ) & Rasikananda.

After Burning Man 2007 AJ moved to Berkeley and opened up a bike shop, having earned hands-on experience with hundreds of Burning Man bikes. He's systematic, methodical, attentive to detail and a smooth talking salesman. AJ is always smooth, even his rough drafts inspire awe. Rasik and AJ worked together with the Avatar Studios crew on The Simple Temple: Chowpatty, check it out for your enlightenment pleasure.

This is AJ's shop. I took the snap a blink too late.

This is the Land Rover our buddy Madhavendra purchased for Burning Man 2007. He swapped it with us for a slick Macbook Air. We decked it out at REI's blowout sale (a $450 roof rack for $20!!)

The discount roof-rack had a few minor problems which we easily fixed with AJ's assistance.

We've just fried up some nummy tofu for the road, and said our farewells to Sri Sri Radha Madan Mohan, Sriman Mahaprabhu, Laksmi Nrsimha and Srila Prabhupada at ISKCON Silicon Valley (ISV).